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Emily overslept on Friday and showed up to her classroom in a ponytail and mismatched pumps, with mascara all over her left eyelid because she’d put it on in the car.
“Whoa,” Chloe said. “Are you OK?”
“Yes, why?” Emily asked, even though she had a pretty good idea why Chloe was asking.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were hungover,” Thomas said.
“No, but I haven’t had any coffee yet. Will you go get me some?” She was kidding. Mostly.
“Like from the teachers’ room?” Thomas asked.
“Yes, unless they erected a Dunkin’ Donuts on the island while I slept.”
“My, you’re cranky when you wake up. And no, I don’t think I’m allowed in the teachers’ room.”
“Fine.” Emily looked at the clock. She didn’t have time to go either. Darn it. A screaming headache was about to commandeer her head any second now.
“Did you hear about Bojack?” Thomas asked.
Emily sat down. That’s when she noticed her pumps. One black. One brown. Otherwise perfectly matched. “No. Now what?”
“He threatened to kill Jake Jasper yesterday,” Thomas said.
“Was he drunk?”
“Oh, of course. But still! You can’t threaten to kill someone!”
“Did they arrest him?”
“By ‘they’ I assume you mean the sheriff? If so, no. He hasn’t. But I think he’ll have to. Jake filed a formal complaint with the company. So they’re not just going to let it go.”
“When did it happen?”
“Yesterday afternoon. At the actual job site. Stupid Bojack drives right up to the site and falls out of his truck. Starts yelling at them to get off his land or he’ll start shooting.”
“Shooting?” Suddenly this was more interesting. “He had a gun?”
Thomas shrugged. “They didn’t see one, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have one. Lots of guys keep one in their truck.”
“Isn’t he a felon? Then he’s not allowed to have a gun?”
Thomas snorted. “He’s not allowed to drive either. But he still does. Anyway, Jake went to deal with him, told him to get off the property, which of course, isn’t his land, and Bojack pushed him in the chest and said, ‘I’m coming for you first. Get off this island or you’re dead.’”
Emily was skeptical. “That sounds a bit too poetic for Bojack.”
Thomas shrugged. “That’s what Jake told the company.”
“And who told you?”
“My dad.”
“And who told your dad?”
Thomas looked stumped.
“Exactly. This is all just gossip. The only people who know what really happened are the people who were there. Unless Bojack is arrested, I’m going to assume that nothing too serious happened.”
Bojack was arrested.
During first period, Emily was waxing poetic about Gwendolyn Brooks’s use of line breaks when someone knocked on her open classroom door. She looked up to see Thomas standing there with a large Styrofoam cup.
“Sorry to interrupt, but it was an emergency,” he said.
“Did you actually leave school?” she asked, quickly crossing the room toward him.
He shrugged. “Maybe?”
She thanked him profusely, took the coffee, and said, “I owe you huge, but you shouldn’t have left school. Now get to class.” Then she took the travel cover off and slugged back some of the medicine.
Thomas waited for her to swallow before he muttered, “I just heard. Sheriff arrested Bojack.” Then he vanished down the hall.
“What a brownnoser,” Tyler said, and everyone laughed.
“That’ll be enough out of you, Tyler.” She took another swig. “And don’t worry, when you bring me coffee, I won’t let anybody say anything bad about you either.”
––––––––
Emily had procrastinated for as long as possible, but she was out of time. She needed lines on her field. With a gut full of dread, she approached Larry at the beginning of lunch. He was mopping in the conference room. “Excuse me, Larry? I was wondering if you could put some chalk lines on the softball field?”
He stopped mopping and looked at her. After a long silence, he nodded and began to push his bucket away.
“Do you need the measurements or anything?”
He stopped and turned back toward her. “Who do you think lined the field for the last softball team?”
“I don’t know. You?"
He nodded. “You can leave a diagram in my mailbox if it makes you feel better, but I doubt much has changed. Most things don’t.” And then he turned and wheeled away again, leaving her baffled. What a strange man.
As she walked by the gym on her way back to her classroom, she had the urge to pop in for lunch duty. Which was weird, as it wasn’t her turn. That’s a little like going to have a tooth drilled when one doesn’t have a cavity. Still, she obeyed the nudge, just in case it was the Holy Spirit giving it.
At first, it appeared there was no reason for her to be there, and both the math teacher and the art teacher expressed their horror at her decision. “Well, if you’re going to be here, you mind if I take off?” the art teacher asked.
“Sure, go ahead.”
Dominic swore under his breath. Emily looked at him. “Just wish I’d thought to ask first,” he said.
“Ah. How goes the job search?”
“Shh!” he said, much louder than she had asked the question. Then he whispered, “It’s good. I’ve had several interviews.”
“Mr. Hogan lets you skip school for interviews?”
“He thinks my mother’s ill.”
Emily took a few steps away from him, suddenly thinking maybe the island should go back to the math teacher resumé pool.
“What did you just say?” DeAnna cried out, interrupting Emily’s thoughts. No one was anywhere near DeAnna, so Emily didn’t know whom she was talking to. “You wanna say something, say it to my face!” she cried in the general direction of the popular table.
Blake spoke up. “We didn’t say anything about you, Anderson. Just mind your own business.”
“I heard what you said, Blake!” DeAnna cried, standing up, her shoulders high and squared.
“Then why did you ask?” Blake asked, and several of his cronies laughed. Emily began walking toward DeAnna, not sure what she was going to do when she got there.
But DeAnna was headed in the other direction, toward Blake. “You don’t know anything about me or my family,” she cried, “and at least I’m not a ...” As she commented on Juniper’s virtue, she pushed her in the back.
Juniper stood and whirled around. “Are you kidding me?” she shrieked. “Did you seriously just put your filthy hands on me?”
“Yeah, I did! What are you going to do about it? Have me arrested?” She called her the same name again and looked like she was going to push her again, but Dominic had arrived on the scene and stepped between them. Emily was suddenly embarrassed that she was standing frozen to her spot and headed toward the fray.
“You’re crazy,” Blake said to her. “Bojack is going to prison where he belongs.”
“He wasn’t in any trouble until her father started it!” DeAnna cried, managing to sound both threatening and on the verge of tears.
“Oh, will you get a life?” Juniper said. “Get away from me. Go take a shower.”
“Juniper!” Emily said. “Enough! DeAnna! Mr. Hogan’s office right now.”
DeAnna turned her head slowly to look at Emily and then said sibilantly, “Make me.”
Emily was at a loss. She wanted to drag the child out of the room, but of course she couldn’t touch her. She knew Mr. Hogan likely wasn’t even in the building. “Fine,” she said. “Everyone else, out.” She looked at them. “I’m serious. Out. Right now. Leave your trays. Go stand in the hallway.”
No one moved.
“Are you nuts?” Dominic asked.
“I said, now!” Emily said with more volume.
“Come on, guys,” Thomas said. “Let’s go.”
The students got up and filed out of the gym. Finally, the door swung softly shut behind them, and Emily looked at DeAnna. “Show’s over, DeAnna. Not sure what you were trying to prove, but your audience is gone.”
DeAnna burst into tears and fled toward the locker room. “You can go let the other kids back in,” Emily said to Dominic. “I’ll go after her.” She followed DeAnna into the locker room in time to hear the outer door click shut. She followed her outside into the bright early spring sunshine and had to shield her eyes as she looked around the parking lot for her. Finally, she saw her running toward the woods. Regretting her pumps, she took off in pursuit.
But when Emily reached the edge of the wood, DeAnna was long gone. Having no idea which direction to pursue her in, Emily trudged back into school.
“What on earth did that accomplish?” Dominic asked when he saw her.
“I didn’t hear you having any better ideas,” Emily said. “I just thought we needed to separate her and Juniper, and I didn’t know how else to do it.”
